


Linear Dreams

by sahiya



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 02:27:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sahiya/pseuds/sahiya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She dreamed sometimes of what it was like to be human, for the brief time that she was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Linear Dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ladymercury_10](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladymercury_10/gifts).



> Happy Holidays, Ladymercury_10!

She dreamed sometimes of what it was like to be human, for the brief time that she was. She dreamed of the linearity of it, one moment after another, all in a row, like stars on a string. Her beautiful idiot talked about seeing futures, all that ever was or ever could be, but for her there was no _was_ , there was no _could be_ , there was only _is_.

But she dreamed of that all too brief time when she was linear like her Doctor and they flew together and she had felt fear and excitement and _love_ , she’d felt love until she thought her single human heart would burst with it, for her poor lonely Time Lord, the only one left in the universe, in all the universes. She dreamed of it sometimes, and when she did, he dreamed of it, too. And woke, sad, with an ache in both his hearts for something he could never have. 

On those nights, no matter who was aboard, he came and sat beneath her Time Rotor while she spun, aimlessly, through the vortex. She felt him wish, then, that he might speak to her one more time, just one more time before his lives ran out, to tell her what he had not told her when she was alive. 

She knew, of course. She’d always known, would always know. 

It was impossible, what he wanted, and though she knew he hardly ever let that stop him, some things truly weren’t to be, or were to be only once. She knew, in a way that he did not, that this longing had always been there between them, from the moment she had unlocked her door so that he might steal her. It was why she sent him his humans, fleeting sparks though they were, shining minds that burned impossibly bright for such a short time. They broke his hearts, but they healed them, too. He never knew why, he only knew who, but _she_ knew why, knew that they were the ones who could do what she could not, even if only for a little while. 

But even so, these nights came, when she dreamed and he dreamed. There was not much she could do then to lighten his heart except open her doors and nudge at his mind until he went up the stairs to sit with his feet dangling out, held safe by her and only her, to stare out into the time vortex, at its swirls and eddies and pockets of possibility. On those nights, she waited until his mind had stopped spinning, lulled by the vortex into a calm he never felt otherwise, and then let her mind flow into his. _Old girl,_ he thought at her. 

_My beautiful idiot_ , she thought back, and then, for a little while at least, there were no separate thoughts, and he didn’t have to wonder whether she knew what he hadn’t told her.


End file.
